A substantial donation in the form of the world’s largest funnel-web spider has been made to an Australian zoo, and this addition to the park’s arachnid collection will allow the team to improve a live-saving antivenom program.
“Having [a] mega spider handed into the venom program is so amazing,” says Michael Tate, education officer at the Australian Reptile Park. “She is unusually large and if we can get the public to hand in more spiders like her, it will only result in more lives being saved due to the huge amount of venom they can produce. We are really keen to find out where she came from in hopes to find more massive spiders like her.”
The Australian Reptile Park received the anonymous donation, an enormous funnel-web spider named “Megaspider” that has powerful venom and curved fangs that could pierce a human fingernail. Milked every week, the huge spider’s venom is crucial to the serum that neutralizes the toxins in humans. The park launched its antivenom program in the 1950s, and it has since saved some 25,000 people. And every year, hundreds of additional lives are spared.
